Apathetically Anywhere
by fanaticalParadox
Summary: From the moment their eyes met in freshman year of high school, Yang Xiao Long knew that she was going to hate Mercury Black. Alternatively; an unexpected road trip. (Rating might change)
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER ONE: It's Not Easy,**

From the moment their eyes met in her freshman year of high school, Yang Xiao Long knew that she was going to hate Mercury Black. She just knew – as he perched his feet up against his desk and tilted his chair until it bashed against the one behind him, as he mindlessly doodled in the margins of his notes, as he scoffed at anything the teacher said— she just knew that she would hate him. He hated her too, of course. Or maybe he just played into her enthusiasm. Mercury was always one to toy with other people, and everyone knew it.

Yang liked to think, in the back of her mind, that it was a destined sort of rivalry. That by the end of year they would have a showdown. A showdown that would outlast all memories of heated banter, or fisticuffs, or even that one time they each actually studied and did work to compete through grades (the teachers still look back on those days fondly, and consistently pat Professor Watts on the back for manipulating their rivalry into a positive school work ethic. Or whatever.)

So she hated him. And he hated her. It was perfect, black and white. Simple.

This, though, wasn't simple. Because here she was, drenched and huddled on a random city bench, crying her eyes out and the only person who stopped to care was Mercury fucking Black.

Yang was always impulsive. She'd buy what she wanted, fight who she hated, and protect who she loved. So she ran when she couldn't fight and immediately found herself drowning in the thunderstorm outside. And she kept running, slipping and _thinking_ until she just couldn't anymore.

She should've chosen a dryer night to get into an argument with her dad. Maybe then she wouldn't be sobbing about little nothings; like losing her tears to the pounding rain, or about how fucking cold it was. It was funny; her long, thick hair usually stuck to her neck with sweat and sizzled as the sun heated it. Now it weighed about 10 pounds more, and instead stuck to her skin with the ice cold rainwater.

Warm clothes didn't really help if they were soaked, and her fiery personality sadly wasn't enough to melt the ice that had formed around her lungs and the soles of her feet. So she sat down and curled up as far as she could, on the right side of a city bench.

She was right next to an old lamppost that didn't even work anymore- one of the ones that half-baked teenagers would lean against for a smoke, since there was nowhere else to go when you smoked for the sake of looking cool. Anywhere else and it would look pitiful.

The lamppost wasn't doing those wonders for Yang though.

It was late, and a Tuesday, (which she had previously deemed the most uneventful day of the week) so nobody was out. Everything that passed by was either an empty taxi or a bird. And based on the weather, it was really stupid bird. Even if someone on the roads at this hour were a good Samaritan, they couldn't possibly make Yang out in the wall of darkness and raindrops, cowering on some bench. If they did, they'd assume she was some homeless burnout or an unwanted rug left for dead.

And yet despite all of this, he was there, curiously gazing at her through an open window of a sleek silver sports car. His eyes, usually consumed with some sort of condemnation towards the world they were forced to look at, were now open and though not welcoming— they were intrigued. Yang didn't know why Mercury was there, or how he saw her, but her first instinct was to wipe her tears and glare. Glare as if he hadn't just seen her so completely and utterly broken.

And he just tilted his head, motioning to the passenger seat and tapping the side of the car as his arm hung loosely out the window.

It hurt to perk up, to straighten her hunched form and look menacing. The rain felt like needles on her skin, stabbing with a force gifted to it by the thick wind. And she was just so tired. So she obliged.

Yang picked herself up with whatever remaining dignity she still had, somehow managing to lift her upper body before her legs could catch up, and ended up stumbling over a patch of weeds growing up through the cracks of the sidewalk. Her eyes narrow as Mercury whistles impatiently, tapping louder onto the metal of the car, fingernails creating sharper sounds every once in awhile. He seemed so casual and innocent right there, even though he was most definitely a sociopath.

She recalled their 10th grade psychology class, where he publicly humiliated the teacher, "psychoanalyzing" her obvious neat freak nature, somehow linking it to a less-than-dignified sexual history. Mrs. Peach was left in tears, pinker than her namesake, and Mercury just smirked. He just smirked, and tapped his fingers against his desk smugly as Yang watched in horror. In absolute mortification of his apathy. She decided then that he had no care for other people's emotions, and would either end up as one of those scientists doing human experimentation for the sake of knowledge (because he _was_ smart) or as a serial killer. Or both.

Yang replayed this memory as she walked up to the car, attempting to engage in a staring contest with the silver haired menace— even though his gaze averted to his rearview mirror, which caught the headlights of another car behind them. Sighing, he meets her fiery gaze again and quirks an eyebrow questioningly, "I know you're going through some shit or whatever, but I don't have all day." He pauses for a millisecond, looking down in thought before snapping back and cutting off Yang's prepared retort. "Or night. Whatever. Just get in."

He flicked the master lock of the car doors on and off multiple times as Yang went through the long and painful process of rolling her eyes and walking around the front of the car to the other side. She winced when she passed in front of the bright and bluish strobe lights, blinking rapidly to regain her sight after momentary blindness. As she wrapped her hand around the door handle, Yang met Mercury's gaze from across the car, noticing a more characteristic playfulness that wasn't there previously. She wasn't sure what exactly prompted this change in his equanimity, but it became apparent when she attempted to yank the door open, only to find it locked in place.

"Really funny," she spat, regaining her balance from the unexpected whiplash of trying your hardest to open a locked door.

"I know," he grinned passively before actually unlocking the door. He exaggerated the gesture, hyper extending his index finger before wrapping it tightly around the switch and slowly flicking it backwards. He was mocking her and she hated it. But in the end she was still not sure whether it was worse than her previous tears-fest on the bench, so she got into the car anyways, slamming the door for good measure.

The interior of the car was sleek, black, and so very _Mercury._ To be honest, she expected something less expensive from the guy who smoked cigarettes instead of eating lunch and wore practically the same frayed jacket every single day— but he was always full of surprises.

He drummed on the steering wheel as she buckled her seatbelt, before turning to her and sighing. "So, where to?"

She cocked her head, "you aren't taking me straight home?" She had expected a quiet transaction that only enemies could have.

"Well," he inhaled on his first word, exhaling on the follow up statement. It was something he did often when questioning someone sarcastically. "I'd need your address for that, yeah? Also…" He trailed off, which angered Yang, as her fuse was already lit from all the bullshit she just had to deal with at home.

"Also what?" And despite her voice heightening under the guise of a question mark, the retort was most definitely a demand.

"Do you _really_ want to go home right now?" He prodded, extending 'really' out with the addition of about twenty 'e's.

And her lack of a reply was enough of an answer for him. She sighed shakily throughout the silence, only making noise in her head as sloppy breaths echoed around her skull.

"So, now that _that's_ out of the way," he closed the window, cutting off the drowning drone of raindrops on pavement. The only sounds left were the engine's purr, the unending exhale of air conditioning, the lowest setting on the radio, and Mercury's next words. "Where to?"

Yang was, for lack of a better term, taken aback by him. Not by how sarcastic and blunt he was, or by the tinny sounds of Nirvana being played at minimum volume through the speakers. But rather, by how he seemed almost genuine. His face betrayed no ulterior motives, which usually tended to plaster themselves there in bold.

"I…" She wasn't sure whether to answer honestly or not. Whether to give him something that Yang would normally say, or something that she actually needed to say. After moments of debate, she decides, hesitantly, on the latter.

"Anywhere. Anywhere but here or… Or _there._ " She cringed into herself and squeezed her eyes closed as she thought of home.

"Anywhere sounds nice," he stated, looking spacily out the window, pupils barely distinguishable from the rest of his dark irises as they dilated.

That's when it was actually silent. She tuned out any background noise and just stared at him. His voice was as calm and apathetic; as expected of a sociopath (she had to remind herself of how generally awful he was on a regular basis as to not let her guard down around the enemy). But there was something there, something in the way shadows poured over his cheekbones and caressed each pale freckle that emitted a feeling of hopelessness that mirrored her own.

He sits there like that for what seems like a nanosecond before he's tearing through the streets, splitting the oceans flooding them and knocking his head against the seat, welcoming the force of his speed.

Yang wasn't prepared for the sudden momentum, and ended up clinging to the armrests in shock and self-preservation. She quickly let go when she noticed Mercury's triumphant smirk, narrowing her eyes at his satisfaction.

They were like that for awhile- and the raindrops that would've splattered against the windshield at an ordinary speed rolled into the chase, barely even leaving a trail behind. The engine silenced at the high speed, working faster than sound could handle– and any vibrations emitted from it were undetectable at that point. Mercury had increased the volume of his music, and bobbed his head along to the cacophony every time the chorus or riff played.

Eventually they had escaped the confines of the city, and the streetlights stopped appearing in their wake. They both relaxed when they got onto the highway, as if they ripped off the shackles tying them to dimly lit alleyways and wet street-side benches. Despite their "getaway", an uneasiness still blanketed the rivals, and Yang was desperate to kick it off.

She looked at him, and he didn't seem to care about her icy stare, or notice it, since he just kept tapping his fingers against the steering wheel. Yang coughed, in that purposeful way that was really only there to call attention to something. To her.

" _What_?" Mercury sighed, rolling his eyes to meet hers.

"Aren't you going to ask?" She elaborated after she was met with a raised eyebrow and an increase of speed. He was more impatient than she was, seriously. "Why I was there? Why I don't want to go home?"

"Do you want me to ask?" She answered him with silence and he exhaled before knocking his head on the seat behind him. "I already have an idea of what happened, you're easy to read. I don't really need to ask if I'm not curious."

His apathy angered Yang further, and she seriously had no clue how his parents could possibly put up with him. "Really. You have me all figured out? Try me."

His left eyelid twitched a bit at the offered challenge, and he licked his lips before smirking. "Okay, I won't really have to try though."

"Ha ha. You're so funny."

"I know," he gave her a cheeky wink before sucking in enough air to puff out his torso, which took a lot of effort since he was so lanky. "Okay, so obviously you had a fight with your guardian— since you were the one running, you aren't in control, so it couldn't be a friend or your sister…" he looked to the upper left hemisphere of his periphery before continuing "I assume it was an ordinary argument, something small, or at least not world ending, yeah?" he didn't wait for her response to his confirming question, since he didn't even take a breath as he kept going.

"Someone mentioned a sore subject or a secret or whatever, and you bolted the fuck outta there. Did I get it right?"

Yang sunk into her seat, curling her spine into the crack between the perpendicular pieces of chair.

"I guess I did."

The blonde's lips pulled into a pout. She should have known he'd hit the nail on the head, and then twist said nail into her gut through his condescending and uncaring _correctness._ He was always right, and even though her eyes were red rimmed, and her hair was soaked, he continued fidgeting and acting as if he was driving her home from school.

He noticed her visible unrest and rolled his eyes, "you shouldn't have asked, if you didn't want me to tell."

"Yeah?" She snapped, jerking her spine straight. Her hair's wetness splattered across the dashboard with the speed. "What are _you_ doing out here, driving around at ass o' clock in the pouring rain? Did your fuck of the night kick you out? I wouldn't be surprised, you're a major dick. Probably compensating for something, yeah?"

Her words exited her mouth with a ferocity and rapidity that harmonized with the bullet-like rain hammering against the car. For the first time in— for the first time _ever,_ Mercury exhibited an emotion outside of boredom or humor. Anger. He looked furious; jaw tightening, eyes narrowing, fists clenching. It was a subtle sort of anger that bubbled under the surface of a cool expression— and it almost scared Yang.

"You really don't know me at all, blondie." He spat, upper lip curling as he recomposed himself. "You think that every single person that doesn't treat you like daddy's little angel, or like the fucking Eye of the Tiger is automatically plotting your demise. Just cause I didn't talk to you on that first day of school doesn't make me Hitler. Don't get pissy when I look at that heart you wear on your sleeve, just because I keep mine under lock and fucking futuristic eye-scan."

They didn't talk again after that, and Mercury drove even faster than before— not paying Yang any notice as he cleared his messy head. Yang looked at him though, shellshocked by his… his entire personality that night really.

Because she couldn't remember a Mercury who'd stop a joyride for a crying chick on the road (especially one who he knew wouldn't have sex with him), who'd be considerate of someone's situation (to an extent). She couldn't even imagine one who'd get visibly angry. He got annoyed, but never triggered.

There was one time though. Freshman year, and around the time where the whole social hierarchy of their class was being sorted out. Cardin Winchester, douche-canoe and resident bully, was pestering Mercury and his friends about joining the "top of the food chain" with him and his buddies.

 _"_ _Yeah, um sorry we're not very hungry."_

 _"_ _Excuse me?" He had these big red eyebrows that looked like obese caterpillars, and a face so pudgy that he couldn't even furrow them all the way. The corners of his outstretched spit factory of a mouth seemed to have remnants of breakfast (too rotten to be from lunch.)_

 _"_ _You asked if we wanted to be on the top of the food chain?" She stated it like it was obvious. And Emerald was known for that kind of thing— sounding like a moody teenager at all hours, but it worked for her._

 _"_ _Yeah," Cardin nodded, smirking. His smirk sent layers of skin up the right side of his asymmetrical jaw, like an accordion. The words leaving his mouth were accompanied by a warm stench of a boy's locker room after one too many fuckwads masturbated in the showers. "You'll be all popular and shit, get to push losers around. I can pay you out of trouble too."_

 _He didn't mention that them "joining" his ranks would benefit him more than anything. Though he had all the money in the world, a few gophers that'd do anything for him, and a love of fucking people over— he was far from the toughest in the school._

 _Cinder Fall, for example, was rumored to have literally castrated a guy after he cheated on her. She played with a lighter unconsciously, and probably had blackmail on everyone in the city. And Emerald Sustrai, despite her temper, knew her way around a knife. And everyone knew Mercury could fight— he showed up to school; knuckles bruised and a new shiner every day. Not to mention that he could outwit anyone. Ever._

 _Cardin couldn't beat them if they decided to challenge his position, and no one could challenge him if he were aligned with them. Plus he'd have two of the hottest chicks in the school on either side of his bulky form._

 _"_ _We don't need you for that, peaches." Cinder's voice was like molten chocolate, as if comforting the bully. He twitched at the nickname in disgust— not taking kindly to being treated like a… a girl. Because of course he was a misogynist._

 _"_ _Not to mention, your idea of fun is kind of tame— total offense by the way." Mercury spoke up with his drawl and constantly moving fingers. "Like we get that you're bigger than a girl who's been in a hospital her whole life, you don't need to push her into a locker. It's kind of lame, yeah?"_

 _He was referring to Penny, who'd just managed to attend normal school after her last round of chemotherapy. She was small and freckled, with a crooked smile that could warm all hearts. Knowing she was sickly, Cardin and his goons still harassed her constantly._

 _"_ _Like that doesn't prove you're tough, it just proves you're a massive dickhead who's too much of a quivering pussy to actually get into 'trouble'." Cardin fumed as Mercury surrounded his words with air quotes._

 _He rose to his own defense, as a self-righteous asshole is required to do. "Yeah it's tame," he scoffed. "But it's just a warm-up! I'm not sure if you've heard but, I can do real damage too."_

 _He leaned in closer to the trio, who were already over this massive dumpster-fire of a person. Cardin whispering meant that phlegm would inevitably push its way out through his throat as he choked out more bullshit. Emerald visibly recoiled, Cinder moved her lunch tray about three feet away, and Mercury took a deep breath— like talking himself down out of a mental breakdown. This guy was just so disgusting._

 _"_ _You heard about what happened to May? Zedong? The emo-ass Asian bitch?" He moved his gaze around as he talked, as if recounting an epic story over a campfire. Every other word was a question, prompting a response that they never gave. And yeah, they knew about May. Everyone did. The night before her big soccer championship game, some guy thought it necessary to plow her into a metal pole with his car, and run off. Both of her legs were broken, and even though they'd heal, there was no way she'd get that scholarship she was aiming towards._

 _"_ _Well that was me."_

 _And maybe Cardin Winchester expected some sort of pat on the back, for being evil or whatever. But instead, the trio just looked away._

 _"_ _Yeah, like Merc said: Massive. Dickhead." Emerald spat, her voice sharp and pissed._

 _"_ _Well! You said you wanted a real feat of strength— that's far from tame!" He tilted his head up, like his monstrous eyebrows would suddenly go through metamorphosis and fly away like beautiful butterflies in a poetic escape to freedom. "I practically crippled her! She thought it was okay to reject me," he motioned to his face as if it weren't the worst thing ever "and now she'll regret it for the rest of her life! Good riddance!"_

 _Yang, who was observing the whole exchange from a table away, felt her heartrate skyrocket as she prepared to absolutely wreck this jerk. She clenched her fists and began to rise out of her seat, not expecting Mercury to speak up. His voice was, well, pretty aggressive, and his face was pretty pissed. She paused as he spoke._

 _"_ _You really think that we'll worship you for being an ass?" He starts, his hands no longer toying with the ends of his sleeves, or tapping out rhythms on the table. "For being too much of a cum stained fuck-waffle to back off from a girl who, by the way, has enough common sense not to date the human embodiment of every rape-y wet-dream that jacked up frat boys brag about? For laughing about crippling someone for no good reason other than to distract people from the sad lump of actual dogshit that you are?" He breathes in, and both Emerald and Cinder look at him with a sort of… concern?_

 _But he wasn't done with his tirade. He couldn't be._

 _"_ _To be completely honest, I'm offended that you think we'd give you a standing ovation! That we'd practically let you fuck us with that hard-on you have for being so ungodly abhorrent. Even though you'd totally be a bottom. You think that, because I can break your twigs-for-legs over your own empty ass skull, I'd get off on it? Well you'd be right on that last one. Ignore that." He stopped, to catch his breath that he'd used to let out that stream of savage._

 _"_ _So what we're saying is, if you value your microscopic dick," Cinder hummed, looking at her freshly painted nails as if Cardin wasn't worth her time of day. He wasn't. "Get the fuck out, peaches…" Her hand spiraled into a gesture towards the door— which he promptly waddled to as fast as possible, wondering what he could've done wrong._

 _Yang hated Mercury, but she pumped her fist in the air anyway and gave him a cheer. Which he ignored. She died down in her enthusiasm, wondering why the fuck he looked so goddamn angry. It wasn't like Cardin hadn't done shit like that before—hell, the day prior he had trashed Mercury's locker and the jacket inside (which was his literal baby) and Mercury let him off with a kick to his "nonexistent dick". But Cardin brags about one thing he may have done to a person Mercury never met, and he's about to rip his head open with his bare hands like a coconut._

And that was the only time he'd been angry. They were in their senior year and yet she'd seen him truly angry _once_. And now, she guessed, twice.

 **A/N: Hey I'm alive! A lot of people liked Nighthawks so here's something in a similar vein. Enjoy!**


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO: But Engrave it on your Chest**.

 _"_ _You didn't tell me that you broke up with Neptune," her dad pestered, blue eyes filled with something that resembled curiosity. But it wasn't curiosity. It was just him being a massive control freak._

 _"_ _It wasn't really that important, it's not like we were dating that long anyways— if you could even call it that." Yang sighed, flipping to the next page of her magazine. Her eyes raked over the curves of the model adorning it, licking her lips. Yeah, who knew why Yang couldn't hold a steady relationship for shit? Maybe it had to do with her attraction to anything with legs that wasn't Cardin Winchester (if you could really call those sausages he stood on 'legs')._

 _"_ _Not important? Yang, you shouldn't just date people if you're not going to stay with them! It's irresponsible," he crossed the dining room, snatching the magazine from her hands and tossing it onto the couch. "Not to mention, a pretty bitchy move to the people involved."_

 _Yang rolled her eyes, resting her chin on the table, pout grazing her soft lips. "Neptune's been whipped for Sun since middle school anyways, it's not like we had anything real anyways."_

 _"_ _Yang…"_

 _"_ _We're still on great terms, dad, it's fine. We fucked and went on some dates, it was nice while it lasted." But that's what it was, nice. It wasn't anything worthwhile, and they faked any romantic feelings that they were supposed to have. "I don't get why you're so wound up."_

 _"_ _Yang, I don't want you digging yourself into a hole, okay?" He looked like he was struggling with conveying his point without saying what he really meant._

 _"_ _What do you mean a 'hole'? What, like the one you dug yourself into when you decided to date mom? The one where your dreams and relationship got crushed because of a_ mistake _?"_

 _"_ _No, Yang. Not everything is about me and… and Raven. This is about you and—"_

 _"_ _Yes it is! Everything is about you and Raven! Because all you do is live vicariously through your kids, forcing them to be fucking saints so they don't make the same mistake mom made! And now that you know Ruby is as straight as a rainbow— you're pushing all that on me!"_

 _"_ _Yang–" he's cut off as his daughter continues her rant._

 _"_ _You ever think that the reason I'm doing all this, fucking anyone with a pair of eyes— is because you've been on my ass about it since I was in diapers? Even after mom died, and you didn't give two shits about your kids' wellbeing, you still made sure to remind us not to date anyone! Not to let anyone use us like fucking objects—"_

 _And Taiyang Xiao Long, at that point, had had enough. He snapped, not thinking of his words before he said them—like he'd done so many times before._

 _"_ _You think that you're so mature? You've been sheltered in an idealistic mindset where everything revolves around you— that there are no bad things in this world that can't be fixed with your fists or with your body! This is_ exactly _why you're not ready to connect with your mother!"_

 _And he froze after that— realizing that he had said too much, too long after he had said it. Maybe if he didn't look like a deer in the headlights, if he didn't drop his hand to his side in shock— Yang wouldn't have thought twice of his tirade. At least not about that last part. But he did, and soon enough, Yang's expression mirrored her father's._

 _She felt like she couldn't breathe, and her vision seemed to cut out as her mind short-circuited with the sudden reveal of her own father's betrayal._

 _"_ _You're why she hasn't replied to my letters?"_

The car screeched to a halt, a really painful halt that jolted Yang out of her sleeping haze. It was the kind of stop that slammed heads into windshields, and gave people bruises across their torsos in the shape of their seatbelts— and Mercury remained relaxed in his seat, smiling at Yang's ragged breathing.

"First stop— anywhere!" He inflicted his voice like he was the conductor of the Polar Express or some shit. It seemed like he had forgotten their little spat earlier, and was back to his playful antics. Yang wasn't sure whether to be relieved or not.

"And where exactly is this?" She asked, cracking her neck. Her awkward sleeping position had her stiff all throughout the right side of her body— and it hurt to move in certain directions.

"You'll see!" He replied, almost chipper as he pulled the key from behind the wheel. She really had no choice but to follow, and pushed her door open, despite her arm burning from the movement.

When she stood up, she took a moment to ring her hair out and twist her torso a bit to relieve a little of her stiffness before observing wherever Mercury decided to stop the car. As she looked over the parking lot, and just the parking lot— seeing the pick-up trucks and big ass motorbikes; it was obvious where he had taken her.

"Wow, that's creative, a roadside biker-bar?" She scoffed, resting her hands on her hips.

"Not just any roadside bar," he lectured, licking his lips playfully and dusting himself off as he walked towards the bar. "This one has the best fucking cranberry juice, and the best fucking curly fries you will ever taste. Guaranteed or your money back."

She raised an eyebrow, this was also new. Mercury was acting like a literal child— but not in his impatience or his mischief, rather in this almost innocence that radiated off of him. He seemed almost excited to drink fucking cranberry juice with his arch nemesis. "Yeah, except you're paying."

He shook his head. "For me it's on the house."

And that's when he sped off towards the fucking _biker bar_ at _1 AM_ , eyes expectant as he nodded his head in the direction of the building, egging her on. As if it were a challenge.

She accepted that challenge.

As they approached the building, she slowed her gait to give the place a once-over. It could've either been described as "homey," with its strings of lights and wooden cabin feel— or as incredibly shady; from the ashy dirt that was comprised of decomposing cigarettes and broken glass, or from the wood that looked ready to collapse with its moldy wetness. Yang shivered, remaining on her guard as Mercury pushed open the saloon-esque doors with a dramatic flair that didn't suit him in an un-ironic setting.

The inside of the bar was different from the outside, still homey and still shady, but not in the same way. The ceiling was decorated with license plates of all sorts, literally no space was left uncovered by license plates. Lights still adorned the place, strung up like ivy, wrapped around the edges of the room and the edges of the bar. There were a few tables, where less than savory people sat, cigarettes perched between index and middle fingers as they stared into tumblers of amber liquid.

The bartender looked comically out of place, with his bow tie and freshly ironed suit. His eyes flickered up to Yang and Mercury as they entered, and he let out a chuckle.

"It's been awhile kid," he called, motioning Mercury over to the bar, already pouring him a glass of something. Yang just followed, ignorant of whatever was happening, but at this point she didn't care.

Mercury nodded, exaggerating the gesture. He did that a lot too— either out of habit, or to be funny. Who knew?

"Yeah, sorry about that," he smirked, drumming his hands on the table in anticipation of whatever the guy was preparing.

The bartender patted Mercury's head fondly, and Yang had to hold her mouth closed to hide her surprise. "Don't be, if you're not here, things aren't as bad _there_."

Mercury bit his lip, eyes looking down in… shame? He shifted uncomfortably when his gaze darted up to Yang's confused face. She decided not to ask any questions yet, decided to get a feel for the absurd situation first.

"Nah, Junior," so that was his name. Mercury sucked in, jaw twitching, "he just sold my bike."

The bartender, Junior's beady eyes looked like they'd just pop out of his egg-shaped skull. He whistled, either impressed or overwhelmed, and ran his hand across his carefully groomed beard. "Shit, Merc, didn't think he'd have it in him."

"Well he did," Mercury stated in an almost clipped tone, before straightening his slouch to dramatically accept the basket of… curly fries (of course) that Junior pushed towards him. After handing the teen his sustenance, he slid a tumbler (filled with some amber liquid) over with all the class that a bartender can possibly hold.

Yang looked at the drink and raised an eyebrow, "what, no cranberry juice?"

Mercury didn't look her way as he replied, "this _is_ cranberry juice. It's just not that prefab pink shit you're used to." He wiped away the juice sheen that had coated his upper lip.

"Do you not serve kids alcohol or something?" she asked Junior, who leaned into the bar with the force of his gravelly laugh.

"No, Mercury just doesn't drink." _Interesting._ "I can get you something more… sharp if you'd like, um—"

Mercury answered the unspoken question. "Yang. Or blondie. Or bit—" he was promptly cut off by an elbow to the ribs, causing him to sputter out some of the cranberry juice he was still in the process of swishing around his mouth.

Junior ignored their exchange, before smiling at Yang and continuing. "Yang. I could get you whatever. On the house."

She looked over at Mercury, as if she needed approval for ordering a drink. He just motioned towards the older man expectantly. She held her breath as she decided what to drink, before giving Junior an almost coy whisper. "Do you happen to serve Strawberry Sunrises here?"

Mercury chuckled and Junior went to prepare the drink without a second thought. "I got you in the mood for juice huh?"

"Shut up."

"You wanted to seem more like an adult with your fancy drink names but you literally just asked for vodka drenched juice." He spun around on the barstool as he joked, leaning back as far as he could without falling on his ass.

Yang just narrowed her eyes, unable to combat his quips, or deny that she'd had an unconscious desire for cranberry juice since he'd brought it up on their walk from the car, and didn't want to be obvious (hence, _Strawberry_ Sunrise instead of _Cranberry_ Sunrise. If that was even a thing). Junior slid her drink over just a moment later, complete with a fancy glass, lemon wedge and paper umbrella. After one sip, she was hooked— unable to contain the satisfied hum that bubbled up from her gut.

"Told you so."

"And _I_ told you to shut up."

Mercury shrugged, effectively ending their spat by turning to Junior and flicking a fry at him to get his attention. Once it was grabbed, the teen's childish demeanor was replaced by a more professional one, something that felt both formal and rebellious. Casually adult. "She needs clothes, and a shower. She was caught in the rain—"

"No need to explain yourself, kid. She can borrow some of Melanie or Militia's stuff, they have enough clothes as it is." Junior put a hand up to stop Mercury's explanation, before rotating it to point to the _Employees Only_ door with his thumb. The door was decorated with the same lights, but they were warped to emulate the shape of a bear. Cute.

"Okay. Thanks." Once again, Mercury acts genuine and it throws Yang off. It throws her off a cliff. Before she can regroup, he's leading her by the wrist through the _Employees Only_ door, twisting the door handle (which, at a closer glance seemed to be an old lightbulb— which looked really cool) and yanking it open.

The door opened up to… what looked like the inside of a house. There was homey floral wallpaper, chipped with age around white banisters and mahogany floors. There was an oriental rug surrounded by cushy Victorian chairs that were probably bought from separate yard sales over the course of 20 years. It was the opposite of the skanky, yet welcoming _biker bar_ she'd just been in.

"It's a family run place," Mercury explained, guiding her further into the house. "It's cheaper just to live in the bar than buy a whole separate thing. Plus it's harder to keep a place open 24/7 when your commute is farther than a few feet, I guess."

Yang hummed in agreement, eyes scanning the pictures adorning the walls. Most, if not all of them contained two girls who looked to be twins. Were they…?

"Melanie and Militia." He drawled, answering her unspoken question. "Their dad may be an easygoing guy, but those two are the most uptight brats you'd ever meet. I say this with all the fondness in my heart."

He motioned down the hallway, before instructing "There's a bathroom two doors down, on the left. It connects to a closet with some spare clothes you can wear."

Yang bit her tongue and nodded slowly. "Thanks."

Mercury looked like he was going to say something else. His torso and gait aimed in the opposite direction of his neck which still seemed hesitant to follow as he looked as her. Obviously, it wasn't too important, since he swallowed any words he had and left to another room, leaving her to her own devices.

She reached the bathroom quickly, and struggled to peel off the damp clothing that she had worn for so long. The skin underneath tingled with the exposure to fresh air, cooling down exponentially and sending waves of satisfaction down her spine. It took awhile for the shower's streams to reach a tolerable temperature, but she was so desperate to be rid of the past five or so hours that she just jumped right in— heartbeat sputtering a bit at the freezing water before it acclimated.

Her frazzled hair melted against her skull, the water ironing out each tangle and curl. She leaned her head against the wall in front of her and let out a breath. The longest breath she could recall giving life to. This entire thing was so absurd, really. Who could've thought that she'd be in a duplex biker bar, taking a shower in the room next to her biggest rival? Not Yang, that's for sure.

And he still was her biggest rival, right? He still brandished that lopsided smirk, and used his words as throwing knives whenever somebody attempted conversation with him. There was something else there though, that night, as if he wasn't just poison. He was poisoned as well.

She remembered meeting him. She remembered every time she met him, and every time she wanted to break his nose, to hear the satisfying crunch of cartilage under her impact… but was that all she wanted to do?

 _She wanted to punch him. Actually, she wanted to grab his dick, rip it off, strangle him with it, and_ then _punch him._

 _"_ _Yang, I think you're overreacting about this." Blake had a stigma for rolling her eyes as of late. It was something she found herself doing throughout her tireless exchanges with her best friend. "I doubt he's that bad. I mean he's a dick, yeah, but so are half the guys at this school!"_

 _Yang narrowed her eyes, darting them back in forth in caution before spitting, "Mercury Black is not just a dick, he's a fucking sociopath!"_

 _Blake just shook her head, letting out an exasperated sigh. She didn't pursue the topic any further though, since she knew all too well that Yang would do that on her own. Instead, she braced herself for the barrage of a rant that began to spill from the blonde's red lips._

 _"_ _Seriously, Blake, when was the last time he actually said anything nice to anyone? When was the last time he went to class without making the teacher burst into tears?"_

 _"_ _uh, just now?"_

 _"_ _Shut up." Yang let out a huff of air. "What I'm saying is that he's evil and I must get my revenge!"_

 _"_ _Revenge for what?"_

 _Yang stayed silent for awhile after that, burying her head into the crevices of her elbows which rested on her desk. "I'm angry because he doesn't try. Because everything is such a chore for him unless it's for his own enjoyment. He doesn't feel anything, he doesn't care!"_

 _Blake ran her hand through Yang's hair and along her back, tracing each spinal crevice with utmost care. "Some people don't care about the little things, Yang."_

She didn't notice her fist against the blue tiled wall until it started bleeding.

x

x

x

Yang left the shower reluctantly.

Though the hot water had been belated, it felt orgasmic running over her cold skin. She turned the water off and immediately bolted to the towel folded and ready beside the toilet, hoping to dry off before the water soaking her had lost its warmth. She practically scrapes the water off of her flesh, quickly shuffling the towel throughout her heavy locks— leaving them damp, but airy.

Eventually, after drying herself off (save for a few droplets behind her ears and under her joints) she moved on to the closet. Apparently where some changes of clothes were housed.

There are four of those color-coordinated organizing bins stacked vertically, spanning the right half of the closet— while cleaning supplies and a large laundry basket resided on the left. Each bin was labelled with a name, probably written by its owner. The topmost bin was Junior's, characterized by the slanted handwriting and the cartoon bear drawn in sharpie, decorating the blue exterior. The middle two were the twins', obviously. The 'i's were dotted with little hearts and the letters connected into a makeshift cursive that seemed forced.

From Miltia's, she pulls out a neatly folded… something. A something decorated in frills and sequins that prompted bile to build up in Yang's throat. Melanie's was no different, though the clothes were a different color. She continued to dig through the two's clothes, but came up emptyhanded and surrounded by atrocious dresses.

"Does he really expect me to wear _these_?" Scoffing, she looks to the lowest drawer, surprised to see, in small and compact capital letters: _MERC._

He had a bin too, spare clothes and everything, at this biker bar. Was he related to Junior or something? At this point, Yang could care less, preferring Pink Floyd T-shirts and ripped jeans to whatever Melanie and Miltia called clothes.

She shrugged them on quickly at first, but at some point began to relish in it, sighing as the fabric ran along her arms. It didn't occur to her, until she stared at herself in the mirror— that she was wearing Mercury Black's clothes. That she was comfortable in Mercury Black's clothes.

Her heartbeat accelerated with something, maybe embarrassment, sending blood up throughout her cheeks like it was one of those "test your strength" games at a carnival— hammer and all. Instead of dwelling on it, she composed herself and pushed it all aside. This was all temporary. They'd be back at school and shooting quips or fists against each other in no time. He'd be a standoffish dick and she'd make assumptions, and she wouldn't be wearing his shirt.

She shakes her head and walks out of the bathroom, the warm, condensed mist following her into the clearer air of the hallway. Her gait is slow and cautious, unsure of where she'd go next. Whether to find Mercury or just wait.

Her eyes rake the walls as she moves, staring at the pictures adorning them. It felt, at first, like a timeline of the twins. Two identical babies to two identical toddlers to two brace-faced middle schoolers to two sulking teenagers. Of course there's the occasional black and white photo of Junior with a woman who, Yang assumes is the twins' mother. But she pauses at the last photo.

It's small, a polaroid, contained within a thick black frame. It wasn't clear where the photo was taken, since the edges of the image were blury, but there was a whole lot of white. It's of… Mercury? It's obviously a younger Mercury. Pale skin, choppy silver hair framing knifelike cheekbones, and a galaxy of barely noticeable freckles splattered across his complexion. But at the same time, the child in the photo didn't resemble the Mercury she'd grown to hate.

His face, though that of a child, was gaunt and corpse-like. His eyes peered at something past the camera's lens, dilated and unfocused— and he wore a scowl that looked practiced. Well practiced. He didn't look happy, and why the picture was hung next to photos of Disney trips and Homecoming dances was beyond Yang.

"That's the only picture I have of him."

Yang spun sharply to the source of the voice, shifting her foot into a fight-ready position, only relaxing when she saw it was just Junior. He chuckled at her paranoia and scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.

"The first time I met the little shit, Melanie had gotten her hands on an old polaroid camera and took pictures of anything and everything. Mercury included," He elaborated, motioning with his other hand to the photo she was looking at.

"Oh." She couldn't really say anything else.

"Speaking of; the kid told me about how you hate him." Junior's eyebrows raised in an exaggerated manner as he shifted his weight onto his right foot. Yang was prepared for a defense of her self-proclaimed rival, for a scolding, instead Junior just laughs. "He is pretty obnoxious. I get why someone would lose patience with him."

"Would you say that to his face?" She asked, not sure where she wanted to take the conversation.

"I do, every day." He nods his head in an almost frustration as he answered. "He doesn't really connect with people very well. He doesn't really understand the nuances of the human experience, so he does whatever he wants. It's gonna get 'im killed one day."

 _Some people don't care about the little things, Yang._

"Yeah," Yang whispered, fingers tracing along the edges of the frame before she looked back at Junior. "Where was this taken?"

Junior sighed, like really sighed, as if he knew that question was coming. "The hospital."

"Why?"

"It's not my story to tell."

x

x

x

 _The voice sounded like it was underwater; flattened by a cushion of liquid and incomprehensible to his ears. He could acknowledge its presence, a droning and muffled scream reaching desperately for a listener. Much like those screams, his surroundings were equally ambiguous, if present at all. It's as if a roll of fractured film was whirling through his cone of vision, snapshots of a life— his life. The scenes had wound themselves into him, it was suffocating._

 _Claustrophobic. Unending._

 _An iron door; rusted and weathered, rotting wood frame splintering out around it._

 _Old shoes on broken porcelain._

 _A shock of silver hair._

 _Barbed wire._

 _Pale and habitually bitten lips, stained with carmine, part to reveal another suppressed scream. He wants to wipe away the soot clogging his throat._

 _His legs—his unbreakable stance. It buckles, and he feels numb. Grass, tickling feet that weren't there– nails biting into arcs of stance._

 _A red hot flare boiling his stomach acids._

 _It hurts. It hurts. It hurts._

 _It's like he's looking into a mirror. He_ is _looking into a mirror._

 _There's a snake wrapped around his throat, suffocating him. It tightens every time he tries to rip it off or scream. The snake whispers things to him that nobody else hears._

 _It hurts. He's tired. He wants it to stop._

x

x

x

 _"_ _I'm leaving."_

 _"_ _I'll kill you if you leave" the snake says._

 _"_ _I know."_

 _ **AN: Hey so this is crossposted from AO3 so 2 updates in 10 minutes haha. Comments are welcome!**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**AN:**_ _**Warning: There are a few areas where the flashbacks and present day stuff are alternating back and forth so if it's in italics, it's a flashback.**_ _**I wrote this so fast and only beta'd certain areas so hopefully it's good!**_ _**Please comment and critique! I always like suggestions so I can improve the quality of my work!**_

 **Chapter 3: If you seem**

"So you like Pink Floyd, huh?"

Yang, at this point, had given up on stopping his teasing. "Will you shut up already?"

"I'm just trying to bond over shared music tastes, blondie. I love prog rock, and you do too! Why else would you be wearing that shirt, huh?"

To be honest, Yang had completely forgotten about the clothes she'd changed into, and who they'd belonged to, until Mercury woke up. Her and Junior had found him passed out on the couch after they'd finished their conversation. She was all for shaking him awake and figuring out what his plan was for their little road trip— but Junior pulled her away and whisked her to the kitchen, preparing her a cup of hot chocolate to occupy herself with as they waited for Mercury's nap to end.

A crash had resonated throughout the house, and they found Mercury, grabbing his head after he'd fallen off the couch. His eyes kept darting around, but he was otherwise catatonic. Eventually he perked up, noticing Yang and Junior's presence, and immediately recomposed himself.

"I guess I've outgrown the couch," he stated, smirk plastering onto his face. It looked like he was trying really hard to keep it there. It sounded like he was defending himself. From who? Yang didn't know.

Junior gave him a look and Mercury refused to acknowledge it.

They left soon after, despite Junior's invitation to stay the night. Yang would've been fine with it, really, over going home— but Mercury evidently wasn't. He just grabbed some old Hot-Topic-pin-studded backpack from the other room and lead her out. And then they were off.

The second they'd gotten to the car, he gave her a once over and chuckled. "So you like Pink Floyd, huh?"

And that's how they got there.

"I wasn't going to wear whatever the twins called clothes!" Her voice cracked a little in her embarrassment by the end. "It's not like you don't have too many dumb band shirts and skinny jeans anyways."

"One can never have too many band shirts, Yang." He nodded down to his own Nirvana tee, and Yang rolled her eyes. "It's easy and fun."

"Everything is, with you."

He clenches his jaw and speeds up. How could he be offended? He was a psycho, she couldn't forget that. He did things for himself— his own entertainment over anything else.

 _"_ _I'd rather die than be bored, blondie."_

 _She couldn't look away from the pair of bloody scissors in his hand, or the cold stare that was reflected in them. Her hands shook, her mind spun, and her legs raced to the trashcan._

"You're still on about that?" He cocked his head at her, bangs shifting with the movement. "The time in freshman year?"

 _"_ _You're a psychopath!" Yang screeched, wiping away the trails of vomit that had dribbled down her chin, refusing to look at the mess Mercury had made._

"How can I not be? You mutilated the class pet! For fun."

 _"_ _And_ you're _overreacting," Mercury shrugged, released his grip on the scissors and let them crash limply onto the floor. The blood, still wet on the blades, ended up splattering around, leaving small freckles of red on the white tile. His eyebrow twitched at the additional blood he'd have to clean up._

 _She'd always hated him, she knew. First it was the smirk, then it was the wit, and then it was the_ apathy. _But this was different; this was insanity. The reptile's smooth underside was slashed open with jagged tears, some organs folding out, but unrecognizable in the swamp of viscera._

 _This was the kind of thing you'd see on news stories analyzing school shooters. The kind of thing they'd skip calling home for, in favor of the police. But she never told anyone. She could've— should've told someone. She wouldn't get in trouble— it was well known that she'd never go along with any of Mercury's antics, good or bad. Especially bad. But as he went to wipe up the blood, shifting his jaw to the right in concentration, she just shut down and ran off._

 _"_ _I guess it's our little secret."_

 _He never said it, but he would've if she'd stuck around. The next time she walked through that hallway, the blood was gone and some disgusting couple had claimed the spot for an 'impromptu makeout' that would last two hours. Yang couldn't get the bad taste out of her mouth for another four._

"I just didn't like it," he reasoned. As if it were enough.

"Sure, and the second you get bored of me you'll rip my entrails out with kiddie scissors." Yang scoffed, "why did I ever think that this 'road trip' was a good idea?!" She fell back into her seat, crossing her arms forcefully.

"You didn't. It was just better than the alternative."

"Right."

The silence wasn't comfortable. It wasn't even silence. Her head was so full of noise that it was hard to focus on the road ahead, or Mercury next to her. It wasn't even his fault this time. Memories of why she'd come along with him on this little adventure in the first place clouded her consciousness with confusion.

 _"_ _Your dad is opposed to it, but I thought, only if you wanted it— you could get in contact with my sister."_

 _Her Uncle Qrow was, for lack of a better term, different. He gave off that demeanor of the fun, drunk uncle who had yet to settle down because he was high on life or something. Right then, he had his feet perched on the headboard of her bed, and a flask perched on his lips._

 _"_ _You mean… my mom?" She wasn't used to talking about her mom. She was used to thinking about her, to wishing she'd just show up one day and bake cookies or give her boy advice or anything but this radio silence. "You're letting me see her?"_

 _"_ _It's your choice in the end, Yang. You're already 14 years old, starting high school in a week! You should be able to have this."_

 _And that's how she ended up with that slip of paper. An address, an email, and a number. All memorized by the next day._

 _She didn't send the first letter until two years later._

"Is anywhere still on the table?" Yang asked it quickly, trying to rip the desperate band-aid off before she had any second thoughts.

"It always is."

 _The red flag on the mailbox had never felt so daunting until then. She watched it from her window, antsy and scared of what would happen when the letter was finally collected by the post-man at 3:00. Sure, there wouldn't be an explosion or anything, but would that clenched feeling in her throat go away? Or would she regret it. Whatever it was, there were no takebacks once the clock ticked 3:00._

 _The truck bumbled to a stop, the engine sputtering pathetically before the man cramped inside between stacks of packages yanked open the mailbox's lid lazily. He had all of it under his elbow, switching it out for the incoming bills and college letters._

"Can you take me to somewhere? No questions asked?" If she bit down any harder on her bottom lip, the bucktooth-shaped dents would be permanent.

He exhaled, head bobbing slightly as he thought through what to say next. Whether he'd agree to her plea.

"You'll have to pay for gas."

 _Yang exhaled slowly, but the pressure in her lungs never dissipated._

 _And her mother never wrote back._

"Okay," she whispered, relieved that he'd agreed (if not a bit curious as to why). His finger lifts from the steering wheel to motion at the GPS on the screen above the radio. "Okay," she repeated, louder this time. Ready.

She shakily entered the coordinates onto the screen, remembering each character she had written onto crisp envelopes so many times before. If Mercury noticed her struggle, he didn't express it— not surprising, but she was thankful.

"Brawnwen Law Firm?" he scrunched his face up a bit, though his expression was still as blank as ever. "Whatcha need a lawyer for?"

He looked mildly concerned. It was the kind of concern where his eyes would move to meet hers, and his eyebrows would furrow slightly, as the rest of his body remained static, turned to the road.

"I just need the one," Yang replied curtly, somehow unable to move her gaze away from his. "You agreed not to ask any questions."

"We'll miss school, until Friday, if we plan to sleep or do anything at this place."

"Does it look like I care?" And she didn't. Her eyes held something that Mercury had never seen in them before. They still reflected her anger, her determination in the glare of the car's headlights, but it was something about the way her irises vibrated ever so quietly. She needed this. More than school, more than proving she hated him, more than the air she was breathing.

"I meant it when I said you'd pay for gas," he eventually said. She smirked; he had nothing to attack her statement with, he gave in just like that. He sped up again, leaning into the gas pedal after looking up and down the stretch of highway for other vehicles.

"If you have enough money for this car," Yang motioned to their residence, slowing down as she pointed out the GPS, leather seats and fancy logo that had been enameled onto the dashboard. "I doubt gas is a problem."

"You think this is my car?" Mercury laughed, his shoulders moving with his chest. It wasn't even that funny. "You're hilarious."

"Who's is it then?"

Yang regretted asking the question immediately, as Mercury's mouth slithered into a Cheshire grin. "You really wanna know?"

Hesitantly, she nodded. _Why the fuck did she nod?_

"Cardin Winchester."

Because it was always Cardin _fucking_ Winchester.

Yang's eyes bulged and she jumped so suddenly in her seat that her head grazed the ceiling. She rubbed it as she exclaimed, "you swiped Cardin Winchester's fucking Ferrari!?"

"It's not like he needed it," Mercury shrugged, like it was the simplest thing in the world.

Yang laughed, actually laughed as she imagined Cardin waking up in the morning to an empty driveway. His hands pulling at overly gelled hair, pants ripping as he squatted down in disbelief. When she voiced her vision, Mercury snorted, clicking his tongue afterwards, preparing to say something else.

"And then he'll have to ask Penny's dad for a ride, since they live next door, and he'll have to deal with that shit."

"Even when you're being petty, you're still smart about it," she muttered in exasperation, shaking her head slightly and looking downwards.

Mercury gave her a look of disbelief. It wasn't the real kind of disbelief that wormed its way onto faces with frozen expressions, twitching eyebrows, and dilating pupils. It was more of a mocking, jaw dropping, hyperbole sort of thing. "Did Yang Xiao Long, my mortal enemy, just compliment me? I better just get my camera because pigs are flying right now— look out the window, you're bound to see one!"

"But it was _also_ an insult, dick-bag," she justified, looking down at her hands as she gestured franticly to spaces that one could only assume were pieces of her apparent 'insult'. "I called you petty!"

"I'll take that," he shrugged, smirk on his face.

"No but seriously," she said it in between giggles, trying to re-compose herself. She wished he weren't so goddamn funny. "Why'd you steal the car? It's a sweet ride, yeah, but…"

She trailed off, not sure whether it was to imply a statement she was too scared to say, or if it was because she didn't know what to say.

"Are you asking why I stole something? How I stole it? Or why I did it _now_?" His eyes kept switching from her to the road. "You can only choose one."

"Why only one?"

"Because it'll tell me a lot more about you," he rolled his shoulders, bracing himself for the wind that wouldn't hit him. "How you think."

Yang quirked an eyebrow, hair shifting over her shoulder as she moved with her question. "I thought you already knew everything about me. Because you like psychoanalyzing people or some shit."

 _"_ _Reading people is like reading books, Ms. Peach," he drawled, trying to tilt his chair back, and failing since it was attached to the desk by a big iron bar. In 10_ _th_ _grade, Mercury hadn't grown into his frame yet— all angles and edges that could only be softened by the large jacket he wore. His smirk was worse, only sharpened by his pale complexion and prominent cheekbones._

 _The teacher in front of him frowned at his nonchalant demeanor, tapping her heeled foot on the floor in frustration._

 _"_ _How so, Mr. Black?" She pestered, taking a step closer to him. He flinched at the sudden action in disgust or reflex._

 _"_ _The interesting stuff is between the lines, and," he paused, smirking as he continued. "And they're hit or miss."_

 _Ms. Peach stiffened, not expecting such insolence on the first day of school. She started the class with introductions, asking for names and the reasons for taking the class; whether it be "to learn the intricacies of the human mind" like a nerd, or "for the AP credit." She didn't expect this lanky menace, sitting in the 2_ _nd_ _seat to the front (because his last name started with B) to say that he took the class because it was easy. As if he didn't get the memo about how difficult her assignments were when he signed up._

 _"_ _Mr. Black, I don't think you understand what this class is about. It's not about whatever crime TV show featured an all knowing behaviorist told you— it's a science." Her mannerisms didn't fit the words pouring out of her mouth. She was trying to defend herself, instead of attacking him._

 _"_ _Bullshit terms like 'amygdala' and 'socialization' are useless if you can't apply them, Ms. Peach. Your classes may get 500% more work than any other AP Psychology class out there, but you still have a laughable passing rate."_

 _Yang's name was practically last on the list, and so she watched from the opposite end of the classroom. She hoped Ms. Peach would put the asshole in his place, but knew she wouldn't. Couldn't. He wasn't Cardin Winchester, who's red rimmed mouth spewed unintelligible nonsense whenever he tried to be a delinquent. Who didn't understand the difference between 'your,' 'you're,' and 'I'm,' he was that selfishly stupid._

 _"_ _So yeah, according to your syllabus, if we get a 5 on the final exam— you'll change our final grade to an A. So I'll just refrain from the ridiculous workload in favor of a sleep filled sophomore year."_

 _"_ _As if_ you _could get a 5 on the AP exam, Mr. Black," her voice moved into a condescending tone. She sounded like a monarch, squishing a peasant under her dainty shoe, disgusted that her foot got dirty. "I remember going to school with your father. He was far from a passing score, let alone an exemplary one."_

 _"_ _My father?" Mercury's voice seemed curious on the outside. But there was something else underneath it._

 _"_ _Don't think I didn't recognize Marcus in you the moment you strode in," She chuckled. "You're just like him."_

 _The whole class could feel the glare that Mercury now wore. They could feel his fist clenching the air in the room and ripping it out of their lungs. Dead silence. If Yang looked closely, she would've seen the quick breaths he took, the crescent shaped wounds where fingernails dug into the flesh of his palm. But it took seconds for that to stop, for him to recompose whatever chaos was whirling behind his eyes._

 _"_ _Don't think I don't notice the hand sanitizer decorating each corner of the room," he rebutted, not even pausing when he saw Ms. Peach's expression darken in both confusion and… fear. "Or the mathematically organized desk, or how you've straightened out your already-straight shirt at least..." he tilted his head in brief thought, "20 times in the first ten minutes of class. It's not necessarily OCD, people keep saying it's OCD."_

 _Ms. Peach looked ready to either slap him, or bolt right then and there. Her puce-colored lip was folding under her front teeth, as if she wanted to correct him. She knew she couldn't though, since she went to straighten her blouse again, unconsciously._

 _"_ _OCD isn't so obvious, it's more quirky. So I think they're all wrong when they say that. I think that calling you OCD would be an insult to people who are actually OCD— since the scarf on your neck is most definitely covering up a hickey. I think you're stuck in a purely sexual relationship with someone you're in love with. Someone who sees you every day. You're trying to prove to them that you've gotten your life together, seeing how organized you are. Why would you need to get your life together? Why haven't you tried a relationship first? That's usually what people do at your age." He smirked, looking her dead in the eyes. "So did you sleep around in your prime or something?"_

 _When he opened his mouth, it didn't close until Peach was in tears and out the door._

 _"_ _And that's a miss!" He shouted, voice still low and apathetic. He wanted it to carry. For everyone to hear._

"Why did you do that, anyways?" Yang asked, because even though he was a sassy shit, he hadn't gone that far with any other teacher. Not even Ms. Peach herself throughout the rest of that year (she sort of avoided mentioning his name outside of attendance.)

"What, psychoanalyze Peach?"

"Yeah."

"She had a stick up her ass. She treated everyone like shit, acted superior to them— she deserved it."

Yang flopped down into her seat, not able to combat that. He was right, Ms. Peach was a bitch.

"But," she perked up, not expecting a continuation. He always said things as if to end the conversation. "If you really wanna know why I went that far, it was 'cause of what she said. About my dad."

"What'd she say?" The memory was fuzzy in her mind, and she only clearly remembered the smirk on his face.

"That I was just like him," he sighed, turning to face her. "I hated that."

If it were said in any other way, it would've prompted a response from Yang, a question maybe. But the look in his eyes, the white-ness of his knuckles, gripping the steering wheel— it prompted silence. And he got it.

The rain had ceased a long while back, but the car's windows still had remnants of raindrop trails that would warp along with the speed. She had nothing else to stare at, as she leaned her head against the door. The car's headlights were blinding, but only illuminated the studs along the lane markers. Any other light was swallowed by the thicket surrounding the road, they were alone.

The radio was unnoticeable until they stopped talking, cranked onto one of the lowest settings, music mixing with static as they moved along the highway. But now she could hear every word, every guitar riff, every crackle of white noise that emitted from the speakers flanking the dashboard. It was tamer than Nirvana, more ambient, and she couldn't tell who it was from, not that she would know of them if she was told.

There were long periods of synth riffs, drum machines and random dialogue guiding them into moments of intense musicality. There were times where she felt utterly alone, but not lonely— and others where it was the other way around. Where she felt like the world could fit in her palm, like she could clench her fist and end it— and it would mean nothing.

Her breathing slowed down, and her heartbeat mirrored the music echoing through her ears. Closing her eyes, inhaling the harmonies, forgetting everything— it seemed really easy right there. She didn't know how long she listened, how long she was in limbo— floating between sleep and awareness, nowhere near struggle.

When the music stopped, quietly aboard the soft pounding of a heartbeat, she was disappointed. It ended perfectly. It had no unnecessary moments, or rushed areas— but she couldn't help but want to go back. To that void. To that warmth.

"Dark Side of the Moon," Mercury said suddenly, voice gravely after not speaking for so long. "Considered one of the best albums of all time. It's also the album on shirt you're wearing."

She looked down at her shirt— his shirt, at the light fragmenting off a prism. She'd seen the design before, associated it with Pink Floyd, thought it looked pretty cool. But she'd never heard the actual album.

"It was an album? Felt more like one song."

"It's supposed to. It's the passage of life; time, money, brain damage. Flows together. But it all starts and ends with a heartbeat. Just a heartbeat."

Now it was actually silent.

x

x

x

x

It was about 4:30 AM when they arrived at a motel for the night. Yang offered to drive the rest of the way, but he loudly proclaimed that he trusted no one behind the wheel of such a beautiful car. She didn't fail to mention that it was Cardin's beautiful car, so it wouldn't be missed.

The woman at the front desk gave them a key begrudgingly, pissed off that a couple of teenagers strode in at ass 'o clock in the morning. Ones who shook their head profusely at a single bed and darted to their room without a single kind word. Her face ballooned in certain places, so her glare was absolutely hilarious.

"Did you see how she literally _threw_ the keys at your face? As if she was doing anything better." Yang guffawed, leaning into her laugh and against the wall as Mercury unlocked the door. He struggled with the key for a few seconds, since the door's handle was evidently old and rusted over.

"Probably watching porn," he chuckled, tossing his jacket onto the first bed, leaving the second for Yang. "Did you _see_ all the boxes of tissues? I can bet you she was using that pen she just signed us in with."

Yang shivered, "I don't even want to think about that right now. Or ever."

"Damn straight."

Yang plopped onto the bed horizontally, hair billowing around her, legs dangling off the side as she stared at the ceiling.

"I've never stayed in one of these before."

"Really?" Mercury asked, completely taken aback. "I thought you were the 'have sex with every person in the school by graduation' girl."

If he weren't right, she would've slapped him.

"Yeah but I've never done it in a motel. I usually went over to their house, or if I was feeling risky they'd come to mine…" She just hadn't seen the need to use a motel, but it felt like she was scared of being labeled as a slut with the way she was talking. She wasn't ashamed of it, though, because the shoe most definitely fit. "God, I sound so vanilla, don't I?"

"Nah. I always took you for the rough sex kind of chick," he said pointedly, both changing the topic and continuing the conversation. "Like, you don't need all that kinky shit, but could still leave wicked marks, be all dominant or whatever."

"Really? You've thought about me in bed?" She rolled her eyes, "I should be flattered."

He finally sat down on his bed, brushing lint off of the grainy bedspread. "It's just the vibe you give off."

"What about you?" Yang shifted the conversation onto him. _Beat that._ "What are you like in bed?"

"Depends," he shrugged, leaning onto his palm, which rested on the bed beside him. It pressed down hard into the springy mattress. "On the person. The atmosphere."

"The _person?_ Not girl?" She asked suddenly, surprised at his wording.

"Proud bisexual," he opened his arms wide to gesture at himself, "what's it to you, Ms. Pansexual-stereotype?"

"You just seem really… Straight, to be completely honest." Yang couldn't explain it in words, so she fumbled the most basic ones around to get the concept across. "Like sure you don't mind gay people, but you're completely against the idea of putting your dick inside some dude's ass."

Mercury was silent for a moment, nervously looking at the wall behind her. She didn't get what was the big deal, he just admitted he'd done it with guys, what else was there?

"I've bottomed too, you know."

 _No she didn't know._ "What!? Are you serious? _You_ , Mercury Black, sass-master and rebel without a cause— are a bottom?"

"If you want technicalities? I'm a switch, top or bottom, depends. So, the more you know."

"The more I know," she repeated, staring at him in complete disbelief.

They burst out into laughter after two seconds of staring at each other. Maybe it was because of their mutual sleep deprivation, mutual secrets, or mutual appreciation of motel-lady's atrocious haircut— but any tension from their car ride, was absent then. It was freeing, to laugh so hard in a situation so shitty. To forget about the Cardin Winchesters, the unanswered letters, and the mud outside.

Their guffawing faded out eventually, leaving a less-blatant series of snorts in its wake. Yang tried to continue their conversation, to get that feeling back.

"Okay so say you're at a motel for a quick fuck," she clarified, "what're you like then?"

He thought long and hard, at least Yang thinks he did since he was silent for awhile. She studied his face, underneath the yellow light of the lamp between them. It pooled over his cheekbones, highlighting the bridge of his nose. He never wore make-up, but his eyelashes were thick and dark, and his almond shaped eyes could pierce the air with how sharp they were— stare only intensified by his dark eyebrows. Maybe it was just the atmosphere.

He sighed, running a hand through his silver shock of hair.

"I guess I like surprises."

So she leaned in and kissed him.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Text

 **Chapter 4: Like you're going**

" _Okay, so we don't have enough supplies for each lab group, so I'll pair you all up into groups of four," Professor Watts announced. His eyes narrowed at the loud groan that filled the classroom. "Shut the hell up, I let you pick your lab partners. You're going to have to deal with meeting new people, that you've known since the beginning of the year. Boohoo."_

 _Watts, quite frankly, was the biggest dick on the school's lineup of teachers. It wasn't always a bad thing, he could be a really cool teacher when picking on the most annoying students, or when he let his Chemistry students play around with toxic materials. But his condescending tone and sadistic nature always pissed everyone off. Once he gave a pop quiz where every single answer was C. Everyone failed that, even though it was an easy test. Because he was a dick._

 _"Anyways, since I'm too lazy to remember any of your names, just partner with the group closest to you." He narrowed his eyes at Yang and Blake, who's heads turned to the table next to theirs, holding Weiss and Ruby. Fake-coughing, he decreed; "vertically."_

 _It would've been fine if the table behind hers held anyone other than Mercury Black and Emerald Sustrai._

 _By now, she'd decided she hated him. Like really, really hated him. Freshman year had come and gone, and his smirk remained. Emerald wasn't much better, especially since Ruby had an enormous schoolgirl crush on her, and Yang was basically the president of the Ruby-Protection-Squad._

 _Blake must've seen the look on her face, because she rested a hand on Yang's shoulder and held her back from the edge. "It's just one lab, Yang."_

 _They turned their bodies around to the other lab table, across from Emerald and Mercury. Emerald gave Blake a slight smile, and Blake beamed back, blush staining her cheeks._

 _"Are you fucking kidding me?" Yang muttered, rolling her eyes. What about Emerald was so appealing to lesbians?_

 _Mercury snorted, twirling his pen at a remarkable speed. "That makes two of us."_

 _They did the lab. It wasn't a hard one— especially since 3/4ths of them understood everything perfectly. Yang didn't get all the equation balancing, but was content with mixing all the chemicals and cleaning shit up._

 _By the end of class, Emerald and Blake had 'gone to the bathroom', leaving their respective best friends to glare at each other._

 _Watts strode by their table, eyebrows raised. "Who knew you two could be left alone and not tear each other apart?"_

 _"Were you looking for a show?" Yang snapped, arms crossing._

 _"What if I was?"_

 _"Then you wouldn't be doing your job." Mercury seemed to have mixed feelings towards Watts. On one hand, he laughed at all or the teacher's sarcastic remarks, but on the other, he hated people talking down to him. It was the only thing that seemed to really get on his nerves._

 _"That's weak, Mr. Black, I was expecting better." Watts smirked, before chuckling. "If you two aren't sleeping together by graduation, god really isn't real."_

 _Both of them gagged. As if she would even be in a room alone with the jackass— let alone fuck him. And Mercury seemed to agree, what with the grimace on his face._

Her heart hammered in the back of her head. It was like a machine gun was rapid-firing against the inside of her chest. Everything was just so overwhelming— she was seeing the world for the first time. It was like she was blind her whole life until now.

A lot of importance lies in the little things, at least Yang thought so. Every moment warranted a reaction— every grudge had a story, every love had a click. A moment where everything felt completely right. Mercury obviously wasn't like that. He didn't hold grudges. Love, for him, was messy and incomplete— like an abstract painting. Moments of serenity, moments of chaos.

When she kissed him, smashed her lips against his, it was like that. It didn't click— not in the way that it should've, and that excited her.

She remembered her first kiss, with her first girlfriend— Coco. Her mind went blank and everything around her vanished. The only things that were real; the arms around her neck, the wetness of the other girl's lips, the certainty.

But now, now it was more like that painting.

Her mind didn't go blank like it always did, but rather flooded with every thought that could've rained into the crevices of her brain. It wasn't clean, or passionate, or quick— it was fingers entangled in violent brushstrokes of hair, the ugly friction of fire and ice, the beautiful flowers that bloomed across her skin with every touch he returned.

And maybe now she got it. Why Mercury preferred this to the latter.

Initially, Yang had thought his way was too simple, too clean. No details. But now, as she dug her fingernails into the pale skin of his neck, feeling each color that he hid underneath that first layer of skin, she realized it went the other way around.

Her shirt (his shirt, really) came off first, tossed aside as if unveiling her painting. A saturated sunset of colors and oil that smeared onto his ocean of grey with each impact. Because that's what is was, an impact. They'd touch and it was like a bomb went off right in that spot.

Her heart hammered in her chest, and she just danced with it.

 _"It all starts and ends with a heartbeat. Just a heartbeat."_

They fit together like… Like Yang Xiao Long and Mercury Black. Nothing more or less.

She didn't know how long it was before she had to actually breathe. It was like her head had been underwater and she finally came to the surface— a gulp of air, a loud gasp, looking at the popcorn ceiling and the fan's shadows dancing on it. She regretted that everything was so clear now.

Her chest kept contracting and expanding as she panted, slowly calming after a long while. Even after Mercury had fallen asleep next to her. They didn't go all the way— they didn't need to, but she was stripped down to her undergarments (which were embarrassingly enough bear-patterned panties and a sports bra. She didn't expect to be intimate with someone when she'd put them on!) Mercury still wore his pants, socks too— but his chest was bare.

She turned onto her side, frowning at the stains on his skin. Bruises that didn't match the ones she'd just left along his collarbone— scars littered over his ribcage and spine.

"Admiring the view?" His voice rumbled in his chest, gravely and lazy, she could feel it. She thought he was asleep, she was wrong.

She was wrong about a lot of things.

"What the fuck, Mercury?" She snapped, jerking away so fast and hard that she almost fell off the bed. It was a twin sized mattress after all.

His eyes were closed up until then, eyelashes gently brushing against his cheekbones, curling upwards as eyelashes often do. They fluttered open as he smirked, playfully watching her embarrassment. Yang wished that she could mask things like that, in the way he did, but inevitably her face would heat up and her muscles would tense— she was just pure unadulterated emotion all the time.

"I don't get why you're getting all ashamed now— you were the one who kissed me. Seriously it was perfectly timed," he closed his eyes again, flopping onto his back, stretching his arms upwards until he heard a crack. "I definitely didn't expect it."

She got a good look at his left side now. Before, she'd been too engrossed in their sex, or he'd been lying on his side— but right then she bore witness to a splatter of scars and marks, discoloring his alabaster skin. The biggest one creeped out from below his pants, evidently being the tip of the iceberg.

"Seriously, I know you hate me— it wasn't anything special or whatever, I'll forget about it if you—" He paused at her silence, eyes flickering onto her worried look. He followed the gaze; from her vibrating irises, to the marks on his skin.

Yang gulped, trying to look away as fast as possible, but he already saw it— that look. "You really get into that many fights?"

He gave her this pointed look, one that expressed frustration with her lack of genuineness, rather than the sarcasm usually engraved across his complexion. "You really think all that is from fights? Not even a hacksaw can leave this shit."

He was right. It wasn't a cut, or a place where a broken bone hadn't healed up right. It looked like someone had splattered red paint across his side, and let it fade for a few days. Yang shifted awkwardly, not sure how to reply.

 _"Where was this taken?"_

"Junior, he…" Her eyes darted around a bit as she figured out what to say. What to ask. "He said you were at the hospital. When you met…"

"Yeah," he nodded, biting his lip in thought, eyes looking into the nothing in front of him. "We did."

Yang nodded, sighing silently and getting the feeling that he wouldn't say anything else. Why would he? They may have just gotten hot and heavy on a spring mattress, but she still thought she hated him.

"His wife had some weird ass heart thing, it's how she died but that was before I met them— anyways, the twins have to get checked out every few months to see if they have the same thing. It was coincidence that they ran into me." He ran his hand over his face in exasperation, scared of what he would say. "If he hadn't footed my hospital bill I'd have been fucked."

"Can I ask why you were there?"

He shifted his weight a few times, somehow hot despite being right next to the air conditioning, and right under the fan. "You can ask, not sure if I'll tell."

"Why were you there?" She wasn't sure why he made her repeat the question. It was implied when she'd asked if she could ask in the first place, that that was the question. She guessed it was to stall, or to prepare. Maybe both.

He didn't say or do anything for a good ten seconds, before he quickly sat up— he looked really unsure about what he was doing.

"I know you hate me but I swear to fucking Christ— if I show this to you, you don't tell anybody, or mention it to me, or give me any of those looks people give me."

She didn't know what to do so she nodded.

He sighed and began to unbuckle his pants, fumbling with the zipper as his hands shook. Yang didn't notice because her face was in her palms.

"Why are you stripping?!"

He rolled his eyes. "Just shut the fuck up, Yang, I can't really show you if my pants are on."

"Does your dick not work or something? It's not surprising, but you don't need to show me! Really, I get the idea!"

He stopped, then, pants still on, despite being unbuttoned and such. She could get a glimpse of boxers, and a little more of that one scar. Mercury looked pretty pissed. "Can you at least pretend to be serious about something, for once? Like I'm about to give you personal information, you, and you're making fucking dick jokes, how mature!"

At the onset of this barrage of criticism, Yang was taken aback, physically recoiling from it. As if he was the epitome of serious. He was the kind of guy to laugh at a funeral, to mock ugly-cry faces. He said it himself— "Easy and fun."

"Yeah, and you're so mature," Yang snapped, rising to defend herself. She didn't care about what they just did. The fact that he'd given her so much in the past six hours.

"Yes, actually. More than you."

"Really? How the fuck are you more mature than I am?" She was on her feet now, so was he. "What makes you so much better? Huh?"

"I'm not living my life in this little bubble of pettiness, of hypocrisy that makes you so naïve to the actual nature of people. I don't act surprised when people are assholes!" He's yelling. She'd never heard that.

"You think that I'm naïve? That I have the perfect little life? My real mom left me— my step-mom died, my dad is never happy with anything I do. I'm probably not going anywhere because my grades are so horrible, no matter how hard I study." She has to take a breath, but it's not the same gasp from just 30 minutes earlier. Passionate, addicted, ready. It was a broken breath that ended in a hiccup. "I can't form a genuine relationship with anyone because I don't want them to leave me! That sound naïve?"

Mercury didn't say anything, instead he finished taking off his pants.

Initially, though she'd deny it, her eyes gravitated to a very tempting crotch area. But as he finally peeled the jeans away from his lower body, she didn't know what to look at.

"Mercury…"

The scar wound through his boxers and to his thighs. Both of which ended, right above the knee. Or rather, where the knee was supposed to be. Because Mercury's legs weren't flesh and blood, but rather plastics and metal.

"I won't tell you how, but this is why I was there."

She nodded, not looking up at his face. "How can you walk so well? Like isn't that super expensive?"

"Cinder Fall." He stated bluntly. "Her family is most definitely criminal— but they're rich. We met at the end of middle school and she helped me out."

"Oh."

Yang wasn't expecting Cinder Fall to be the answer. She should've, since it made a lot of sense really— she was one of his best friends, and had plenty of money. But for some reason she'd hoped it was something more heartwarming like part time jobs, or his parents selling some car or something. But it was Cinder Fall.

"And you can feel everything?"

"I can understand if something's touching them, but I don't feel it— it's weird."

"Okay," she nodded, still breathing heavily, taking all of it in before repeating "okay."

"No more questions?"

She shook her head, but then changed her mind halfway through. "Is that why we didn't go all the way?"

"Yeah, I don't trust that with anybody."

"Now that I know, can we finish what we started?"

And so they did.

"Should we talk about it? What this means?"

They'd fallen asleep pretty quick after all that. It was pretty late, or early, depending on how you looked at it. For them, it was late.

They were up by 11:00 AM and out the door, no bags to pack— just growling stomachs and a place to go. The woman at the counter gave them a dirty look, and they weren't sure if it was because she'd heard them, or because she was a bitch. Yang had her money on both.

"You mean last night? Or this morning, or whatever." Mercury hadn't answered until he'd pulled the car out of the motel parking lot and onto the highway. He wasn't as blasé as he was usually— since he didn't know what anything meant either. He spoke in choppy sentences, with how awkward he was about all of it. Cute. "I assumed it was a one-time thing, since you hate me and all. Or a two-time thing, if you think that hate sex is hot. Which it is."

"I don't hate you, Mercury. Not anymore."

And she didn't. She definitely didn't hate him now. Whether it was the glimpses of humanity she'd witnessed, his sarcasm beginning to grow on her, the sex, or the bombshell he'd dropped on her before— it was evident that she felt something positive towards him. But she wasn't sure what that was.

"So what does that mean?" He pestered, eyes darting between her and the road.

"I don't know."

Mercury sighed, dragging his hand over his face in exasperation. "That sure throws a wrench in my plans."

She wasn't sure what that meant, but she didn't press on it. "Can we just, I don't know, figure it out?"

"That's tougher than it seems, Yang." He muttered before running his bottom lip between his teeth.

"It's a good thing I'm tough, then."

He nodded, long and calculated breaths becoming shaky as he did so. She knew he was hiding something from her— multiple somethings, but was fine with pretending she didn't. Because she realized that maybe she was using too much energy on hating him, hating everything that she didn't understand— and maybe she was tired of it. It was easier to go along with it. To do what felt right.

Their comfortable silence was interrupted by a loud rumbling emitting from Yang's stomach.

"Know any more good, roadside joints?"

"Thought you'd never ask."

They ended up driving for another hour or so before stopping somewhere. It was lunch time, by then, so more and better places were open. It was a busy diner, which Yang was initially skeptical about. Why the fuck would Mercury choose this family-friendly, full of people diner? He hated people. Especially happy people.

"Yang, all the good places are crowded."

"Junior's had like 2 people there."

"It was like 3:00 AM, Yang."

So there they were, awkwardly standing in line at some burger joint, that Mercury assured her had "the best burgers, and the second best cranberry juice." As much as she'd learned about him, Yang was still completely out of the loop when it came to Mercury's apparent addiction to cranberry juice.

"Can I help you?" The woman at the counter asked, pulling her pen out from behind her ear. She had her reddish hair pulled into a tight ponytail, revealing tan skin and an abundance of freckles, her nametag read, in bubble-letters "Illia". She had that fake, bright smile that was commonplace in restaurant staffs— but her eyes met Mercury's and her smile dropped into a blank, sarcastic, silent scream of a face. "Oh."

Mercury sighed, looking at Yang, "what do you want?"

The woman, Illia, rolled her eyes, "you've been waiting for like a year and you haven't decided whether you want a hamburger or a cheeseburger? Typical."

"Hello to you too," Mercury sighed, smirking, "just as much of a bitch as usual, I see."

Because of course Mercury knew the cashier at the random diner.

"Do you want me to get you your damn cranberry juice, you fucking creep?"

Yang laughed, this chick was funny, whoever she was. "I'll just have what he's having."

The cranberry juice was mediocre at best.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: to Crash**

They didn't have any plans to stop after leaving the diner. It had already been a whole day since they'd escaped the rainy confines of Vale, leaving only about two or three days to get to Raven, and then get back. Yang hadn't thought about what would happen afterwards.

You'd think it'd get boring pretty quickly, seeing as the expanse of asphalt turnpike never appeared to change. Every once in a while, they'd see some dumb billboard with an ad that looked like it had been designed with MS Paint— but other than that; rolling hills and patches of scraggly forest were all that flanked the car.

Mercury, surprisingly, made up for the drive's unparalleled lethargy with stimulating conversation. Those moments, where you scrape the inside of your skull for an interesting, or funny refute until your eyes practically pop, they don't seem to happen for him. All the comebacks that come to mind four hours after-the-fact just flow immediately through his coffee flavored voice.

And maybe it had always been like that. Yang wouldn't have noticed before— since those quips she'd recently grown to appreciate had initially been the very sources of that previous indignation.

It felt like he had an unlimited amount of grungy progressive rock up his sleeve, since they'd been driving for hours and the euphonious disharmonies still clung to the dust in the air with fervor. She didn't mind, after a while, even though she'd never listen to that stuff outside of that car. He talked extensively about each one— and she couldn't understand why she was so drawn to it, but didn't hesitate pull that feeling closer, rather than refuting it.

Yang usually took Mercury as the kind of guy who kept his mouth shut because he'd rather save it for those special Cardin Winchester, or Professor Peach, or Yang Xiao-Long moments. Even after their apparent life-changing motel stay, she still saw him as the actions-speak-louder-than-words guy. Evidently, that wasn't the case.

"Okay so Emerald is just standing, practically naked on my balcony at 4 in the morning and demands to be let in. So I let her in because why not, and she just makes a B-line for the shower— even though she knows I'd get fucking murdered by my old man for this shit if he knew. Anyways, she's using my toothbrush and has already made herself at home in my clothes— and she walks out into my room and suddenly freaks out."

"Why? Wouldn't you be the one freaking out?"

"It takes a lot to freak me out. Anyways it turns out that she was at Cinder's earlier that night and bolted because Salem, Cin's mom, would've fucking destroyed those two if she found them fucking on a school night."

"One, how does that account for freaking out? Two— they're dating? I didn't peg Cinder as the type." If they were dating, then why did Emerald constantly flirt with Blake?

"One; I'm getting to that. Two; no. Cinder's aromantic, I think. They dated for a bit but it never worked out since Emerald is really clingy and romantic. _But_ from what I hear every fucking day, the sex is amazing, so."

"So… Friends with benefits?"

"Sometimes it feels like they're more 'benefits' than 'friends,' but yeah."

Yang wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean, but just nodded anyways.

Mercury squinted to look at a road-sign in the distance before looking down at the GPS and sighing. It looked like they had a long way to go.

"So Emerald starts freaking out and relaying all this information to me and I was like you, right? 'Dear, sweet, innocent Eminem— you have sex with Cinder all the time, why are you having a panic attack on my bed at 4 in the morning?'"

"Eminem?"

"With a nickname like 'Em,' the possibilities are endless."

"So what happened?"

Mercury narrows his eyes, onyx irises darting back and forth as he leaned in to mutter out the punchline of this story. "It turns out that she wasn't wearing her own bra."

"Who's was it?"

His lips twisted into a maniacal grin. "Salem's."

Yang didn't hesitate to burst out laughing. "Wait are you serious?"

Mercury, no matter how composed he tried to be, could not control the laughter from bubbling up from his lungs. "Yeah, one hundred percent."

"How did she not realize?"

"Maybe it was the same color or something? I don't know, I'm not Emerald."

"Obviously not. If you were a girl you'd understand that bras aren't just another grungy band tee. You know when it's not yours."

"You would know a lot about wearing other people's clothes," he attempted to say it stoically, but even he couldn't refrain from smiling smugly at his refute.

"Fuck off."

"How about I fuck you instead? Oh wait…"

Mercury continued to chuckle, and Yang continued to giggle— until they reached exit 16, where the GPS pushed them to turn-off.

As much as she wanted to press on the whole "we had sex" thing, she decided against it. Maybe after all of this was over they could figure it all out.

They quieted considerably once they were on a populated road. When they realized that they weren't in Vale anymore. The road had that typical post-exit feel. A few gas stations and a one room police station that connected to one of them. A Walmart. It was surreal— Yang had never been to a Walmart in her life, choosing the pleasanter option of an actual market. But the people who lived here only had one option.

"This is so weird," she emphasized her feelings through speech, and Mercury just hummed in agreement.

"Our destination is still an hour away, so luckily we won't be in this fuckin' nightmare forever." Thankfully, he seemed to hate the small town feel just as much as she did.

"How did you meet her, anyways?"

"Who?"

"Emerald. I knew you were friends, but you seem pretty close."

He nodded, pulling into one of those aforementioned convenience stores and pulling out his wallet. She listens as he gets out of the car and tells the story.

"I think it was second or third grade when we met. We were both shoved into that one class where they put all the hopeless cases. Like, the kids who were too antisocial to be smart, whose parents didn't pay for the placement tests, or who were too emotional to function. It was a huge bullshit move on their part because Emerald is such a nerd.

It was insane— she had a different book every single day. She'd talk on end about them. They weren't that Harry Potter bullshit though, that every kid reads. Em read like Hemmingway and Wilde and Dickens. She'd do all the book reports on those books too. You'd think the school would've noticed, right?"

She nods, even though the question was rhetorical, and Mercury tears the store's door open— an action which prompted a resonant chiming that all convenience store doors had.

"My dad… he was too cheap to pay for the placement exam— he's not one to care about my grades or whatever. Em was a foster kid, you know? She was seen as volatile and stupid because of it, or something. But we sat next to each other so; one thing led to another and we had this weird alliance?"

He shrugged, grabbing a tube of Pringles and tossing it between his hands a few times before putting it on a different shelf.

"I don't know if that's the right word. But we refused to call each other friends. Hanging out was just sitting in silence on the swing-set, or being finished with the work before all the other dumbasses in class and sub-sequentially taking that time to sleep.

That's how it was throughout Elementary school— and it continued into Middle school. It only changed after… after the accident. That's what I'll call it: an accident."

Yang's breath hitched in her throat, but she didn't say anything.

"But like, we always cared about one another, I think, but it didn't show until Emerald came to see me in the hospital. She snuck out of her foster home and everything— she was the only person to come and see me. Junior came, but he was already there— you know that already. She was the only person who ever did something like that."

He stopped talking as they perused the candy aisle, holding up two chocolate bars for Yang to choose from. When she indifferently chose one, pointing with a lazy index finger, he scowled in disgust and just ended up getting the latter. Not that Yang cared.

She grabbed a pack of Oreos and sneakily slid them into the lineup of snacks being scanned in by the cashier. Mercury gave her a dirty look and she shrugged. "What? I'm paying for gas!"

He rolled his eyes and tossed a twenty at the cashier, who barely blinked as they went to retrieve change. "Keep it," Mercury called back, already out the door.

"Why'd you do that?"

"It's Cardin's money anyways."

Oh right. Mercury stole the car from Cardin— and the money too apparently, which brought Yang to her next revelation. "You never told me why you stole it."

" _You_ never chose," he said immediately, before repeating the question from the night prior. "Are you asking why I stole it? How I stole it? Or why I did it _now_?"

"I can only choose one," she affirmed, before stretching with her thought. "Can I ask for more wishes?"

"Ha, jokes on you— I've seen Aladdin, they explicitly say you can't wish for more wishes."

"More genies then," she joked, still trying to figure out which question she'd ask.

"Do you really want more than one of me— I pride myself on being hard to handle."

If she asked why he stole it— he'd likely spin it as "I stole Cardin's car because Cardin was a dick," rather than why he needed to steal the car in the first place. If she asked how he did it— he'd probably answer in full, but she wouldn't find anything worthwhile out, other than that Mercury was even more of a badass than he pretended to be. She didn't really know what the last question meant.

"Why did you stop?"

"What?"

"You didn't have to stop— especially since we hated each other and all. Why did you stop the car?"

Mercury sighed with the purr of the engine, tossing her Oreos at her (which she gladly obliged in). "I don't know. I wanted do something worthwhile in Vale."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It just happened, Yang. I'm a dick but I'm not a Car-dick Winches-turd." Yang chuckled and he pouted, "admittedly that one was pretty awful."

"They can't all be winners."

"You were," he said, pulling out onto the road and weaving through post-exit-small-town traffic. "I made the right choice in stopping."

"You did."

 _Was this a good time?_

"Later, Yang," he added, out of nowhere taken out of context.

 _Evidently not._

"Anyways," he managed to transition to another topic faster than Donald Fucking Trump— except he could actually do it seamlessly. "You should probably check in with your family or something. You don't have your phone, right? They probably think you got kidnapped or something— could have an APB out on your ass."

"APBs are for suspects, not victims," she corrected before adding; "you're probably right."

"I know where to go from here, you can use my phone."

"You sure it's not Cardin's?

"Ha ha, you're the pinnacle of comedy, Xiao Long." He detached the device from the dashboard once they arrived at a red light, placing it into her palms— only letting go of her hands when the car behind him let out a frustrated groan when the light turned green and Mercury hadn't driven forwards. "Jesus fucking Christ, I _get it, buddy!"_

It didn't cease honking until they'd turned onto a back-road for the sole purpose of shaking the asshole off. Yang sighed and turned Mercury's phone on, only to be barricaded by a popup asking for a password. She attempted to bypass the issue by tapping random words that he might like.

 _Pinkfloyd_

 _Pinkfloyd-420_

 _Pinkfloyd-69_

 _69696969_

She really didn't know much about him, to be honest.

"Flan," he said randomly. Yang gave him a confused look, prompting further explanation. "The password is _Flan._ Capital 'F'."

"I never would've guessed that."

"That's the point, Yang. That's why people have passwords."

"Right."

The wallpaper was some dumb frog meme, which she refrained from commenting on in favor of opening up the dialpad to call someone. Who? She wasn't sure until she'd typed the answer unconsciously.

Blake then. It turned out she was a contact on his phone anyways— probably some school project, since they took AP Chemistry the year prior (she wasn't sure if that meant they were smart or idiotic).

 _"_ _Mercury? Why are you calling me— have you seen Yang by any chance?"_

"This is Yang."

 _"_ _Wait— Yang? What are you doing on Mercury's phone? Where are you!? Your dad put out like an APB out on you or something!"_

"How many times do I have to say that APBs are only for suspects?"

" _That doesn't answer my question. Or rather— questions. Plural. Because I have a lot."_

"I'm going to find Raven."

 _"_ _Oh."_

"Yeah, _oh_."

 _"_ _And then what about—"_

"Mercury's my ride."

 _"_ _I'm not even going to ask."_

"Good— because I wouldn't answer. Just… just tell Ruby and Dad that I'm ok."

 _"_ _Are you? Ok, I mean."_

"Ask me in…"

Mercury butted in with the answer (he had a lot of those), "30 minutes."

"Ask me in 30 minutes."

She hung up, before turning to Mercury. "Prepare for a fuckton of worried calls from random numbers."

He shrugged, for the thousandth time that day. "I don't get any of those— it'll be an adventure!"

Yang debated for about 30 seconds (which felt a lot more like 30 minutes) whether to continue on this train of conversation, or let this be her stop. It wasn't like she didn't have the time to ask him after this was all done, but at the same time, it was a better time than any.

"Your parents don't get worried? When you go on your… road trips."

From the way Mercury recoiled from the words, she decided that the decision was a wrong one. The car slowed down— either because of what she said, or because the road he turned into was a narrow one. He lifted a hand behind his head, fingers fiddling with choppy strands of silver. "No— they don't."

"Oh."

"To be honest," he started, with a look of hesitancy smeared across his face. Yang stilled, not expecting elaboration. "That's why I go on them in the first place. My dad."

"Why?" Yang gulped, fingernails digging into the set underneath her palm with a anticipation.

"Don't ask questions you already know the answer to."

She nodded, not pressing further. It seemed like the way to answers, in Mercury's case, was patience. After all, only hours ago, Yang was accusing him of all sorts of things.

"How about one I don't know the answer to?" She asked carefully, lips curling underneath her teeth, leaving the cracks filled with saliva and expanding like Rice Krispees. "Why'd you kill the snake? Back in freshman year."

"Because I didn't like it? I thought I told you that."

"That's all?"

"No."

Yang prepared to push closer to the answer beneath the surface, because she had come so far, had gotten so close to it. She could see its silhouette, shadows on a wax paper wall that he kept around his words and eyes so that no one could decipher his true colors— and she wanted to see more.

However, this endeavor was halted when large buildings began to sprout from the land around them, and it became apparent that they were close. To Raven. To answers. To the end. The phone in her hand vibrated, or had been vibrating, and she only noticed it now. As she recognized her father's number, she froze.

"You going to get that?"

"I don't know." And she didn't know. Her dad wouldn't care that she needed this, he was like that. He thought he knew what she wanted— what she needed. He didn't.

She took a gulp of air and dove under, pressing her thumb down onto the screen hard enough to cause that holographic rippling effect around it— she slid it to the right, and released. It felt less like a release and more of a death sentence.

As she put the phone against her ear, a relieved sigh resonated through the tinny speakers.

 _"_ _Hello? Is this… Mercury Black? Could you put Yang on please?"_

"This is Yang, dad."

" _Oh— Yang! Where are you? Blake gave me this number— I'm sorry about how our conversation left off. I want to explain, wherever you are I can pick you up."_

"Dad, I don't need an explanation. I know why you did it— and I don't care. I'm facing this on my own. Sort of."

 _"_ _Yang, you're not thinking straight—_

"I _am_ thinking straight. Straight towards my mother."

Mercury's breath hitched and Yang realized that _oh wait, Mercury doesn't know who Raven is because I asked him not to ask._ And then the irony of that realization dawned on her, since when Yang asked him, he didn't even mention it. And he was driving her cities away. Huh.

 _"_ _Yang,"_

 _"_ No! I'm not going to let you stop me! I don't care if she rejects me, or flat out forgot about me. Because at least I'll know!"

She hung up and threw Mercury's phone against one of the back seats. "Really, Yang? How am I supposed to find the building now?"

They're on a bridge now, and the sun is high in the sky— beaming down on the canal below them. It's narrow, and he slows down to stay steady.

"Magic."

"Of course, let me just take out my portkey and teleport to Brawnwen Law Firm, and then I'll Avada Kedavra myself."

Yang narrowed her eyes, "are you by any chance… A huge Harry Potter nerd?"

"…No."

She didn't move her eyes from him, and she felt him crack under the look. It was a victorious feeling.

"Okay, maybe— but that's besides the point. My point is that I need the GPS."

He reached behind himself, fingers barely stroking the leather seat as he strained his arms. Yang admired said arms without shame— because they were very nice arms.

It suddenly occurred to her that Mercury's arms might be the last thing she thinks before she dies— because one second, he's reaching for the phone, and the next— the car is driving off the bridge.

x

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A/N: Oops spilled a cliffhanger. I'm just saying that the title was self evident enough ok (even though I just broke up a kpop quote for the titles and this plot point coincidentally ended up here)

Also my sister usually reads these before I publish them and I didn't let her this time so... THIS IS WHY IF YOU WERE WONDERING

Comments Are The Only Reason I Write Fics

Plus I'm self indulgent but...

yeah! Comments and critiques are love! Because I put so much effort into these chapters hahaha

Stay tuned!


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